Did I run? You may believe I did, at least till I had descended the first terrace; then my steps grew gradually wary and finally ceased; for I could hear voices ahead of me on the second terrace to which I had now come, and these voices came from persons standing still. If I rushed on I should encounter these persons, and this was undesirable. I accordingly paused just short of the top, and so heard what raised the moment into one of tragic importance. One of the speakers was Mrs. Carew--there was no doubting this--the other was Mr. Rathbone. From no other lips than his could I hope to hear words uttered with such intensity, though he was guarded in his speech, or thought he was, which is not always the same thing. He was pleading with her, and my heart stood still with the sense of threatening catastrophe as I realized the attitude of the pair. He, as every word showed, was still ignorant of Gwendolen's fate, consequently of the identity of the child who I had every reason to believe was at that very moment fluttering a few steps below in the care of the colored maid, whose voice I could faintly hear; she, with his passion to meet and quell, had this secret to maintain; hearing his wild entreaties with one ear and listening for the possible outbursts of the not-to-be-restrained child with the other; mad to go--to catch her train before discovery overwhelmed her, yet not daring to hasten him, for his mood was a man's mood and not to be denied. I felt sorry for her, and cast about in my mind what aid to give the situation, when the passion of his words seized me, and I forgot her position in the interest I began to feel in his. "Valerie, Valerie," he was saying, "this is cruelty. You go with no good cause that I can see--put the sea between us, and yet say no word to make the parting endurable. You understand what I suffer--my hateful thoughts, my dread, which is not so much dread as--Oh, that I should say it! Oh, that I should feel it!--hope; guilty, unpardonable hope. Yet you refuse me the little word, the kindly look, which would alleviate the oppression of my feelings and give me the thought of you to counteract this eternal brooding upon Gwendolen and her possible fate. I want a promise--conditional, O God! but yet a promise; and you simply bid me to have patience; to wait--as if a man could wait who sees his love, his life, his future trembling in the balance against the fate of a little child. If you loved me--"